Misplaced Pages

Azizi Johari is the pseudonym of an African American model and actress who featured as Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Month in June 1975.

Career

Azizi Johari was born in New York on 24 August, 1948. After some years of wandering, due to her military father's career, the family settled in Seattle, where she attended high school and college. While still in school, she and two friends formed a singing group called The Marvelles and put out a single, "Call Me Back". Later she moved to San Francisco and became a stewardess with United Airlines. She also joined the Black Arts West theatre group and had parts in A Raisin in the Sun, Black Girl and Ladies in Waiting, before gaining an unlisted part in the 1974 film McQ.

Around this time she began using the pseudonym Azizi Johari, using the Kiswahili for "precious jewel", and asserted her African good looks on the 1973 poster Supernatural Dream. Here she is featured as sitting on the ground with her head haloed in an enormous Afro wig. Among other admirers of the poster was Sammy Davis Jr, who eventually featured Azizi in his touring show. She then made her breakthrough when she was photographed in the nude as Playmate of the Month for June 1975 and in the following year was featured kneeling naked on the sleeve of Leon Ware's LP, Musical Massage.

Her name and pictures now began to appear in gossip magazines aimed at African-American representation such as Jet and Players. In the latter she featured several times on the cover between 1978-80. Her 5 foot 6 inches in height and vital statistics of 36-24-37 also gained her TV appearances and small parts in a number of films between 1976-81. One of these, however, the science fiction suspense film "Assassins in Time", to which she was reported as "enlisted" in 1979, never appeared.

Filmography

• McQ (1974)
• Rocky II (1976) as ringside girl
• The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976) as Rachel
• Dreamer (1979) as Lady, a travelling pool hustler
• Seed of Innocence (a.k.a. Teen Mothers, 1980) as Denise
• Exit Sunset Boulevard (1980)
• Body and Soul (1981) as Pussy Willow

TV

• The Six Million Dollar Man, episode "Clark Templeton O'Flaherty" (1975) as Girl
• The Richard Pryor Show, featured as "Blueberry"(1977)
• Redd Foxx TV Special (1977)

See also

• List of people in Playboy 1970–1979

References

1. "Azizi Johari", Encyclopedia of African American Actresses, McFarland and Co., 2010
2. "OMCA Collection". portal.museumca.org.
3. "The Playmate - Playboy Magazine June 1975 vol.22, no.6". www.vintageplayboymags.co.uk.
4. Brothers, Himeros. "Azizi Johari - Playboy Playmate, Miss June 1975". Himeros Brothers.
5. Hanie, Hara (February 14, 2022). "Azizi Johari Is An American Model And Actress- 10 Unknown Facts".
6. 1978; Players 7.3: Players 9.1; Players 9.6
7. Starlog 26 (Sept 1979), p.14
8. Jet, 15 April 1976, p.56
9. "Azizi Johari Playboy". www.playboyplus.com.
10. Phillip Lopate, "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie: The Raw and the Cooked", The Criterion Collection, 24 October 2013
11. J. R. Schmidt, The Bowling Chronicles, McFarland & Co. 2017, p.111
12. BFI filmography
13. BFI filmography
14. Frederick V. Romano, The Boxing Filmography, McFarland & Co. 2004, p.15
15. Encyclopedia of African American Actresses, p.177
16. Jet 28 July 1977, p.21
17. Jet 10, November 1977, p.24

External links

• Azizi Johari at IMDb 

• 1970s Playboy Playmates
• African-American Playboy Playmates
• African-American female models
• 1948 births
• Living people
• Actresses from Seattle
• 20th-century African-American people
• 20th-century African-American women